‘Mistress Pol?’ Nala asked, eyeing me suspiciously.
‘I just came to work here this afternoon, Mistress Nala,’ I said to
her with a polite little curtsey. ‘Enna here said you were feeling a
little under the weather.’ I put one arm familiarly around the
shoulder of the red-nosed girl. ‘I didn’t think we should disturb you.
What do you think? Would stew be all right for this evening?’
Nala pretended to consider it. ‘Whatever you decide, Mistress
Pol,’ she consented with a little shrug. What else could she say?
Everything was ready to go into the stew-pot.
I looked at her rather closely. ‘You don’t look at all well, Mistress
Nala,’ I said with mock concern. Then I laid the back of my hand
to her forehead. ‘You’ve got a fever,’ I told her. ‘We’d better do
something about that just as soon as we get the stew to simmering
and the biscuits in the oven.’
‘I do feel a little feverish, Pol,’ she admitted.
Of course she felt feverish. I’d just elevated her temperature with
the back of my hand. I really wanted this job.
The vegetables and braised stew meat cascaded into the large
bubbling stew-pots, and then I compounded a mixture of ordinary
cooking spices to counteract Nala’s ‘fever’. After that, I hovered over the
‘stew-pots with my collection of seasonings.
The stew we served that evening was barely adequate in my
opinion, but Faldor and his farm hands went at it like starving men,
some of them even going so far as to pour the last dribblings of
gravy over biscuits.
‘Oh, my,’ Faldor said, groaning and putting his hands on his belly.
‘I think I ate too much.’
‘You’re not the only one, Faldor,’ Durnik agreed, also groaning.
Then he gestured toward me as I stood in the doorway with Garion
in my arms. ‘I think we should keep her, don’t you?’
‘Um,’ Faldor replied. ‘I’ll tell you what, Durnik. As soon as you’re ‘
able to walk, why don’t you just nip across the compound and close
and lock the gate? We wouldn’t want to let her get away, now
would we?’
And that was how I cooked my way into a permanent place
at Faldor’s farm. As I mentioned, the stew wasn’t really all that
spectacular, but it was several cuts above what Nala had been ‘
offering.
As soon as supper was over, I beckoned to Enna, the pale blonde
girl with the red nose. ‘Yes, Mistress Pol?’ she said, coming
‘
obediently.
I reached out and touched her nose. ‘How long have you had the
sniffles?’ I asked her.
‘Weeks,’ she said, rolling her eyes upward.
‘I rather thought you might have.’
‘It’s not a cold, Mistress Pol,’ she said. ‘I don’t feel achy or
feverish.’
‘No, it’s not a cold. It’s spring, Enna, and there are some things
in bloom right now that don’t agree with you. Let’s fix that right
now.’
‘Are you a physician, Mistress Pol?’
‘I wouldn’t go all that far, Enna,’ I replied. ‘I know a few home
remedies is about all. Let’s dry up that nose of yours. We do work
around food, after all, and – well, I’m sure you get my point.’
She giggled and then she sniffed. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
Though we all still deferred to Nala, her instructions became
increasingly vague. By the end of the week, I was the one who was
really running the kitchen, but I’d still periodically carry a spoonful
of whatever we were preparing to her for approval. It didn’t really
inconvenience me that much, so I spoon-fed her.
Within a month, the goat, Garion and I were all settled in, and
I’m sure that in the minds of Faldor, Durnik and the other farm
workers we’d always been there. I cleaned and straightened up our
little sleeping room, but Garion spent most of his time in that
vegetable bin. I always knew just exactly where he was, even when my
back was turned to him.
I was very comfortable at
faldars all the way down to the bone, and in a very real sense, I’d
created the Sendars, so coming here was much like coming home.
It was midsummer when uncle Beltira stopped by, ostensibly to
ask directions to Upper Gralt. I took him just outside the gate and
pretended to be pointing out the way while we talked.
We’ve been tearing this end of Sendaria apart looking for you,
Pol,’ he said. ‘I’d have walked right by if I hadn’t caught sight of
your goat. Why didn’t you get in touch with us?’
‘I’m trying to stay out of sight until father tracks down Chamdar.
Is he having any luck with that?’
He hasn’t told us so yet. He’s in Tolnedra right now. The last
time he talked with us, he and that young Prince Kheldar were hot
on the trail of Asharak the Murgo. We’ve been out of touch for a
few weeks, so we can’t be sure if they’ve succeeded yet or not.’
Well, I’d better stay under cover until they find him and start
shipping pieces of him back to Ctuchik. Get word to father about
where I am, but you’d probably better have Drasnian intelligence
carry the message. As long as Chamdar’s still all in one piece, I’d
rather not have my location echoing off every hilltop.’
He nodded. ‘You seem almost happy here, Pol,’ he observed.
‘I like what I’m doing, and I like the people here on this farm. I
wouldn’t exactly say that I’m happy, though. That might change
after father and Silk dispose of Chamdar.’
‘Who’s Silk?’
‘Prince Kheldar. It was his nickname at the academy. I’d better
get back to the kitchen. My helpers all mean well, but they need a
lot of supervision. Give my best to uncle Belkira.’
‘I will, Pol. We love you, you know.’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact I do – and I love you too. Now scoot.’
And then we both laughed.
Garion started crawling shortly after Beltira’s visit, and my life
suddenly became much more interesting. He was in a kitchen, after
all, and a crawling baby underfoot in a place where there are knives,
cleavers, pots of boiling water, and scurrying kitchen workers added
a certain amount of excitement to my life. I could never be exactly
sure of where he was. Dear Gods, that little boy could move fast! I
soon became adept at herding him around with my feet. I’m sure I
frequently looked like an acrobat – pinching a pie-crust with one
hand, seasoning a bowl of dressing with the other and scooping a
very active little boy out of harm’s way with my foot. Garion thought
that was lots of fun, but it didn’t entertain me all that much. I really
began to give some serious consideration to putting him on a leash
or something.
Harvest time on a farm is the busiest part of the year for the
people who grow food for a living, and my kitchen was no exception.
Notice that I could call it my kitchen now. Mistress Nala’s legs finally
went bad on her, and so she went off to live with her youngest
daughter on the northern end of Lake Medalia. Anyway, Faldor’s
farm hands had to be fed four times a day during the harvest, and
that kept my helpers and me busy from well before dawn until
several hours past sunset. I think everybody on the farm was very
happy to see the last wagonload of turnips come in out of the fields.
And then after the harvest was done and all the leaves had fallen
from the trees, an itinerant storyteller stopped by to cadge a few
meals out of Faldor. He was a shabbily-dressed old rascal with
mis-matched shoes and a piece of rope for a belt. His hair and beard
were white and close-cropped, and he had glue on his fingers. He
must have had, since everything he touched stuck to them. I knew
that he was coming of course, since I’d sensed his familiar presence
when he was still five miles beyond the gate.
No, I didn’t even consider locking the gate before he arrived. Well,
not very seriously, anyway.
My goat recognized him, of course, and she smoothly jumped the
gate of her stall and ran out to greet him, her tail wagging furiously.
He smiled and scratched her ears, and then he asked Durnik the
smith where he might find ‘the owner of this fine establishment’.
He introduced himself to Faldor, pretending to be ‘the greatest
story-teller in all of Sendaria’, which might even have been true,
now that I think of it, and then he gravitated to my kitchen where
all the food and drink was. He turned on his not inconsiderable
charm and entertained my helpers while we prepared supper. He
made it look as if he were trying to ingratiate himself with me when
he took some time out from his random pilferage to play with